Monday, February 22, 2010

Applique...Woooooooot!



It's been quite some time since I have posted and its a combo of laziness, lack of time and also lack of photos. I have a camera as well as a camera phone but up until this weekend had no way of actually getting the photos onto a computer. Anyway, problem solved!

I've been working on a owl applique pillow and finished it up a couple of weeks ago. I'm giving it as a gift for a new baby expected around April. I found this pattern in Better Homes & Gardens Patchwork and Quilting Magazine a few months back and thought it was just super adorable. I just had to give it a try. The great thing about this pillow is that it doesn't require a lot of fabric which makes it a relatively inexpensive gift idea. You can mix and match patterns colors, etc and really come up with a unique, creative and fun little owl that I think any baby, toddler or child would love!

(close up of eyeless owl)


This was a relatively easy project once I got the hang of it. The toughest part was doing the faux stitching around the edges of all the pillow shapes. Essentially, all the shapes were already attached to the pillow with fusible webbing but the stitching around the edges gives it a really polished, nice look. Because its such a small pillow, the pieces were pretty intricate to cut as well as stitch around but I ended up shortening the sewing stitch which drastically slows down the machine and makes it more manueverable around the individual pieces. I also changed the stitch so it was much more dense so I was able to only stitch one time around and leave a very solid looking stitch rather than spread out. I think the result is perfect! Of course, because this was such a dense, short stitch, the thread broke every few inches which mean I had to constantly rethread and start over. This was extremely frustrating but the result was well worth it!

This project will definately stay in my aresenal of great gift ideas. It was inexpensive, had room for creativity and was a pretty quick project. I think if I make it again for any older children, I may personalize it with an emboidered first name initial.

Novice Attempt: Applique


Results: I DID IT! Super cute project, not very hard, fun fun fun! Definately on my "Will do this again" list.

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